Their Bottoms Are Made Out Of Springs

We did indeed have our annual Thanksgiving outing to The Happiest Place On Earth. There was no repeat of The Great Pumpkin Pie Incident of 2006 as there wasn't a single slice to be found in all of Disneyland. I tracked down some pumpkin muffins, but that's just not the same.

I did treat myself to this lovely, tooth-rotting confection:

Tigger Tail

Marshmallows, caramel, orange candy coating, chocolate stripes. On a stick. YUM! I ate about three-quarters of this and suddenly felt like Tigger! I got such a sugar rush that my head was spinning and I just wanted to bounce around. Hoo Hoo Hoo HOO!!!

Now for the embarrassing part. I got to the front of the sweets line and very proudly ordered my "Tiger Tail." This is what followed:

"Excuse me," said the cast member working the counter, "don't you mean TIGGER Tail?"

Me: "Oops! I'm sorry! Yes! TIGGER Tail! Am I going to get kicked out of Disneyland?"

C.M.: "Well, no, but I don't think Tigger would be very happy to hear you say that."

Me: "I think you're right. I'm sorry."

So ridicurous!

I was just totally clueless...

Recently, I think went on a foodie outing and I didn't even know it! Anyone who knows me understands that while I (obviously) like to eat, I don't cook and I'm no gourmet. On the rare occasion I do "fine dining," I have to look up menu ingredients on my cell phone under the table!

Hello Kitty recently came to town to celebrate her 35th birthday. For three weeks, the Royal/T café/store/gallery hosted an amazing event that included displays of past and present merchandise, works by over 80 contemporary artists, special menus, and various affairs to showcase different aspects of that kawaii little cartoon cat-with-no-mouth that many of us have loved for years.

Hello Kitty items from Japan

I was so excited for this! I love Hello Kitty and a couple of my favorite artists contributed to the exhibition. I really looked forward to checking out the array of memorabilia and the modern artistic interpretations and tributes. Jenn had been a few times, but suggested a brunch there with friends. Great! In addition to checking the place out, what a great opportunity to hang out with some friends I hadn't seen in a while and meet some new ones.

Painting by Luke Chueh

It didn't sink in when after the meal I was ready to peruse the exhibits and everyone else was kind of ho-hum and went along for a bit before scurrying off to do other things. I knew several of them had been before, so figured they didn't need to see it again. I can be pretty daft so it didn't strike me until I read this post and then this one and then finally this one. Duh.

Hello Kitty pancake and fruit

We were gathered primarily for the food, which included a special high tea and other themed offerings (see photo above). Everyone enjoyed the adorable eats.I did have a wonderful time and hope my friends will still include this food challenged dork in future gatherings!

Cosette, I Love You Very Much!

Cosette, our American Eskimo Dog, was born 17 years ago today. It was also a Friday the 13th. She came to live with us on January 3, 1993. I was so reluctant to get a dog at the time, but E was really missing the two out of three he grew up with who were still living with his mom. For the holidays, I gave him a "Certicate" I printed up on the computer and presented to him, complete with the misspelling. We still joke about that to this day. It was good for (1) American Eskimo Puppy. Within a week and change, an 8-week old ball of fluff joined our family.

Cosette is responsible for my love of dogs being rekindled after it had been soured in high school. As is common with her breed, she has always highly intelligent and trainable, agile, and protective. She's definitely a "daddy's girl," positioning herself to be the alpha female of the household. We'll just let her keep thinking that, okay? And it might sort of be true.

We moved across the country with Cosette when she was not quite two years old. She reluctantly let Little Guy join the clan several years later (once she put him in his place) and became a mom to Rusty when we adopted him later. Cosette has survived mammary cancer nearly five years ago and came through a bought of Old Dog Vestibular Disease a year and a half ago.

There's no denying that Cosette is OLD. Among other things, she's deaf, has arthritis, sleeps a lot, is very skinny under her fur coat, and is not quite as sharp as she once was. If you go by the old standard 1 dog year=7 human years, she'd be the equivalent of 119 years old! However, veterinary research has shown that the correlation can be related to the size of the dog. Going by the standards I've found, she is more like a 92-97 year old human. Okay, so that's still pretty geriatric!

I have no idea how much longer she'll live, but I'm not going to dwell on that. I appreciate every day we have with her and let her know that the best I can. Tonight, she and her brothers will have cake and ice cream and if they tolerate it, wear party hats to celebrate a long, beautiful life!

Maybe I'll See You There, We Can Forget All Our Troubles, Forget All Our Cares & Go Downtown

Taken with low tech cell phone camera from the rooftop of the Downtown Independent

I've been falling more and more in love with Downtown L.A. lately. Maybe it's because I've been spending a lot of time there. It's been undergoing a revitalization for years now and truthfully, still has a long way to go, but there is plenty to enjoy.

The Girl With The Orange Hubcaps

A couple of years ago, E and I attended a Scion owners' event that was really fun and sent us home with lots of goodies for our cars. I won a really nice set of rims, which sat in the garage for over a year while I hemmed and hawed over whose car to put them on (they fit both). I finally decided to give them to E since his car needs to look nice for his drive-in movies. I didn't mind as to me, while a car can definitely be an extension of someone's personality, it is primarily utilitarian.

When the Scion brand first hit the market in '03, they campaigned as being the cars ideal for personlization. Again, that was never really my thing, but I enjoyed looking at the stuff other folks did to theirs whenever we attended gatherings. There used to be a lot of nifty events, but things changed. There were design changes in '08 that I'm not overly fond of and just looked at the 2010 xB, which is not attractive at all. But, I still love my xA and E's first generation xB.

So, what in the world is this all about? Orange hubcaps? What. Well, when I was leaning toward giving up the rims, E suggested I could so something funky such as painting my hubcaps orange. Feeling a little guilty owning a Scion that I never modded, I thought it might be a fun thing to do. We had extra hubcaps so figured if it didn't work out it would be no big deal. Eventually, we found some spray paint I liked--"pumpkin orange"--and E finished them up for my birthday. If you know me at all, you know I love orange. I've gotten several compliments, as well as a few snide comments, but whatever...I like 'em. Now maybe I'll get around to putting on the spoiler that I also got for free.

Freefall On A Windy Morning

I started this post in October...I swear...and now suddenly it's November!

In some ways, I can't believe this last month is almost over. It's gone went by incredibly fast, but I shouldn't be surprised as it's been was one busy month. It started, literally on the 1st, with my free birthday excursion to Disneyland. What a fantastic way to kick off October! Among the many fun and exciting things we did, there were also taxes to finish and work presentations to prep, but those things are behind us now.
I could probably dedicate a stand-alone post to many of our activities, but no. Perhaps I'll expound on one or two in the near future, but not now.

Music. We got to hear some pretty cool live music. Fountains of Wayne and Aimee Mann at the Wiltern. I love, love, love those boys and my only complaint is that they were not the headliner and had a shorter set. I'm not sure any of my three readers are fans, but if you are check out this video of a 70's medley version of "Radiation Vibe" they've been doing on the road. Aimee was also wonderful and performed a nearly all-request show that last two and a half hours! Highlight: She sang my favorite 'Til Tuesday song "Coming Up Close." I cried.

The Founding Director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and my favorite conductor, John Mauceri, premiered the fantastic Disney Symphonic Legacy at downtown's Walt Disney Concert Hall for We got "cheap" seats behind the orchestra, but that was fine because we could watch the maestro at work and he was the main reason we went.

We enjoyed more music at W00tstock at Largo from the dynamic duo Paul and Storm, Hard and Phirm, Felicia Day and others. The night included a very amusing slideshow of 100 Things Mythbusters' Adam Savage would like to do/have. Sheer nerd brilliance and entertainment. I laughed a lot.

Other good October times included one of Johannes Grenzfurthner's outstanding lectures, a rant about failing, at Machine Project, a quick couple of hours at The Brewery's ArtWalk, finally posting my Comic-Con photos from July, a one-year old's birthday party, a couple of plays including Nevermore and Steve Allen's Meeting of Minds, a picnic in a lovely canyon park with lots of friends and dogs (and a few strangers), and an outdoor Laurel and Hardy movie at Heritage Square Museum. Our 3-D Club participated in Pasadena's ArtNight and hosted an evening of Halloween themed 3-D short films at the Downtown Independent. We went to the same venue the following night for Kogi BBQ and NoiseFeratu, which thanks to E, was also shown in 3-D. Tired yet? I am.

I was quite excited to finally make it to a live taping of The Big Bang Theory! It was a lot of fun to see the cast in action and yes, as they've said in panels I've attended, Jim Parsons definitely flubs the most lines! Katee Sackhoff was a special guest, but unfortunately, her scene was done the day before and we only saw it on playback. I have a one word mini-spoiler: bathtub. It was a really funny episode and I can't wait to see the final version.

Now is it any wonder why I never got around to coming up with a Halloween costume or make plans to celebrate? I often have at least 3 costumes for various happenings and places to go. I was kind of bummed, but realized Thursday and Friday downtown were geared toward the holiday, even if we didn't wear costumes. I did wear my Hamtaro hat, which I've never worn outside of Comic-Con, to work yesterday. In the spirit of doing something festive, we did ride the Ghost Train that was running at Live Steamers in Griffith Park. It was kind of like a Disneyland laugh-in-the-dark ride, but four times as long and a quarter of the wait! It was a nice way to cap off a hectic, but really fun month!

Sure eyes awake before the dancing is over, wise or naked in Secret Oktober...